Don't Look Back
by blink-once-4-Yes
Summary: Esme's thoughts as she faces the cliff...oneshot. R&R please! By Alice, who promises that she owns none of the characters.


As Esme Platt stood at the brink of despair, she finally acknowledged to herself her desire to take her own life. If her death were to be at the hands of him _(she shudders at the thought of her husband)_ would make her life seem incomplete. She was finally choosing something entirely for her. And the only way to have that choice she craved would be to make it her final choice. Irreversible.

Esme's parents had made the match between her and Charles. The man had vaguely frightened her before they had been married, but she had never spoken of this fear to her parents. Not that they would have heeded her...He was successful, and she was but a daughter that needed to be given away. Her and Charles's anniversary, each year it came up, was the second saddest day of her life.

But that saddest day...She can barely contain a sob now, even here at the cliffs outside of Ashland. The infection sweeping through the lungs of her child _(HER child, so tiny and helpless and hers, never Charles's in her mind)_ had been merciless. She hadn't even had a name chosen.

Even today _(no, not today, today would have no going back)_, whenever she held the children of her dearest friends, when those children looked into her eyes with their infinite wisdom and love, she could feel the claw marks at her heart. Running away from the violence that was Charles hadn't even been her choice. It had been the baby's. All his, all for him.

And now, Esme prepares to toss _(she cringes at the word)_ herself over the edge, to a place where maybe, it won't hurt anymore. After all, this won't be the first time she has found her peace after a fall.

In the recesses of her mind, the name she'd sworn never to think again _(too tempting to think of possibilities anymore)_ came raging forward to hurl itself, to be her only thought. Carlisle Cullen.

Dr. Carlisle.

It was as comforting as the touch of a baby's velvet blanket.  
_(Baby...she thinks painfully, her clawed heart thumping)_

The fall from her father's tree had been painful, especially when she had been a coddled 16 year old with no memories of real suffering. But at the end of the agony, there had been Carlisle, his serene golden eyes calming and exhilarating her all at once. Maybe now, after a fall quite longer and much more final then that had been, she could find her peace once again. No more pain.

This was it. Freedom, love, possibility, and her very own child had been taken from her. Lost. But her life was still hers, and it would be the one thing in her whole existence she could take.

Toes wiggling out over the edge,  
_(Don't look down! her mind shrieks as loud as the wind)_

She smiles to herself, and cups her hands together as if to pray.  
_(Please, make it quick, make it peaceful)_

And this is her final moment.  
_(Her heart thumps in a panicked way, thump thump thump)_

She leaps. And she can only think to herself in that second that this fall is much more graceful than her first.

She's far enough out not to hit her head against the rocks as she tumbles, thankfully. The wind gusts louder than when she had been at the edge, if that's possible, scorching her ears as it tears at her, begging her to turn back the time, and stay on the cliff edge. Maybe even walk away, back to the bicycle abandoned about a half a mile away.

Too late.

Over the roaring wind, her heart beats out it's last cadence, desperate to live out as many thumps as it can.  
Thump, goes her heart.  
Thump, thump, thump.  
Carlisle, Carlisle, Carlisle.

The ground reaches up to embrace her, too fast, at a wrong angle.  
And then:

**Impact.**

Blackness...  
Has it ended? Is there pain?

She cannot tell. Is this the part where she goes to heaven, ascending into the brightness? No, surely it will be hell...She has taken her own life.

A strange sound echoes in her ears, one Esme could swear to knowing. It's as familiar as her own heartbeat.  
But...maybe that's because it is.  
_Thump_, her poor beaten heart says to her triumphantly, _thump, thump._ _We live still._

But where is the peace at the end of the fall? she asks it desperately.  
Carlisle?

With a wild shriek, her back arching upwards, a burning, terrible raging fire has erupted all over her body. She is like a tree caught in a forest fire, unable to move, but in agony as it reduces her to her most basic levels. Are these the tortures of hell?  
Esme's eyes whip open in terror. What could be happening? She must be living still, must have somehow, by some miracle _(good or bad, she doesn't know; all she knows now is the pain)_. And, she has been moved. No longer lying broken and forgotten at the bottom of the ravine, she is now strapped to a gurney in a place that smells of death...The morgue?  
All these thoughts are chased away, not by the overwhelming pain of the fire _(Please, God, stop this pain)_, but by the eyes watching her. They're a bright amber color, unnatural for a human and instantly recognizable. Her heart, already too much abused, skips a beat, mesmerized by the perfect perfection of this man's features. She is insanely _(yes, after that fall, her head must not be working quite right)_ pleased that as she stares into his agonized face, a slow smile begins to spread.

Carlisle.

Her peace after the fall.  
And just like that, the fire is much more managable.


End file.
